WASHINGTON – The Justice Department watchdog announced on Monday that it had opened an investigation into whether any of the department’s officials tried to undo the results of the presidential election, according to the scrutiny of former President Donald J. Trump and his associates. develops before your impeachment trial.
The investigation by the department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, followed the efforts of Trump and a senior federal law official, Jeffrey Clark, to pressure other Justice Department leaders to falsely claim that ongoing fraud investigations cast doubt. on election results. As detailed by The New York Times in recent days, Trump said he considered considering installing Mr. Clark as an interim attorney general to execute the scheme.
“The inspector general is starting an investigation to see if any former or current DOJ officials were involved in an improper attempt to get the DOJ to try to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election,” said Horowitz in a statement, adding that he was announcing the inquiry to assure the public that the matter was being examined.
The inquiry adds to the growing scrutiny of Trump’s attempts to exercise the Justice Department’s power to advance his false allegations about the election in the final weeks of his presidency. There follows another investigation by the inspector general as to whether a federal prosecutor in Georgia has been unduly pressured to help and a broader Senate inquiry led by Democrats about pressure on the department to help Trump’s cause.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly tried to compel the Justice Department to back up his unfounded allegations of electoral irregularities, prompting the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, to publicly declare at the beginning of last month that the department had not found electoral fraud in a scale that would affect the election results. Mr. Barr fell out of favor with Mr. Trump on the issue and left his post within weeks.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
The investigation underscores the fear among Senate Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, that if they do not distance themselves from Trump and undo their control over the party, a constant drip of negative revelations paired with his own erratic behavior could damage his political fortunes.
“If Trump loses credibility because he seems to have acted in a way that no one can justify, the influence he could have on the Republican Party could be widespread,” said William Marshall, a professor at the University of North Carolina who teaches and writes about power presidential. “The more it indicates that he behaved inappropriately, the less easy it is to defend him and the less easy to support him.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat and majority leader, urged Horowitz over the weekend to open an investigation, saying it was “unscrupulous for a Trump Justice Department leader to conspire to subvert the will of the people.”
The inspector general also noted that his investigation would be limited to the Justice Department because other agencies were not under his purview, a nod to the range of people who sought during Trump’s last few weeks in office to find a way to prevent certification of the Joseph R. Biden Jr’s victory
This month, Horowitz opened an investigation into whether Trump administration officials put pressure on Byung J. Pak, then the United States attorney in Atlanta, who abruptly resigned after it became clear to Trump that he would not take steps to cast doubt on or undo the election results, according to a person informed about the survey.
Separately, the Senate Judiciary Committee said this weekend that it had initiated its own supervisory inquiry into officials, including Clark, who was the head of the Justice Department’s natural and environmental resources division and acting chief of its civil division.
Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the committee’s top Democrat, sent a letter to the Justice Department saying it would investigate Trump and Clark’s efforts to use the agency “to promote Trump’s efforts to subvert the election results. 2020 presidential election ”.
Mr. Durbin asked Interim Attorney General Monty Wilkinson to preserve documents, emails and messages related to meetings between Trump’s top Justice Department officials, the White House and Mr. Trump, as well as any communications related to Mr. Pak’s resignation.
Biden’s victory was considered valid after recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia declared him the winner and after Trump’s campaign team failed to prove widespread fraud in lawsuits in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Dozens of FBI investigations have not revealed any electoral fraud on a scale that would have changed the election results, according to Justice Department officials informed of the cases.
Dozens of Republicans in Congress were among those who supported Trump’s false claims, including Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican. On Monday, he confirmed a Times report that he had introduced Trump and Clark, giving the president access to the only senior Justice Department official willing to consider the idea that Biden had not won the election.
Perry, a hard-line pro-Trump Freedom Caucus member, said in a statement to an affiliate of a public Pennsylvania radio station that he spoke with Trump and Clark about allegations of electoral fraud.
“For the past four years, I have worked with Deputy Attorney General Clark on a number of legislative matters,” said Perry. “When President Trump asked if I could give a presentation, I thanked him.”
Mr. Clark’s allies characterized the talks as simply exposing the legal options available to Mr. Trump. But Clark’s former colleagues said there were no more legal remedies that Trump could have sought through the department.
Still, their assessment hasn’t stopped Trump from putting pressure on the Justice Department to fight harder to find a way to help him. When Mr. Barr refused to appoint special advisers to examine voting irregularities or take other measures that would have helped to cast doubt on election results, he and Trump agreed that he should leave the department, according to three people familiar with the conversation . Barr required the deputy attorney general at the time, Jeffrey A. Rosen, to replace him, people said.
Trump began to pressure Rosen to promote unfounded suspicions about electoral fraud the day after announcing that Barr would leave and maintained the pressure in the last weeks of December, pressing him to open investigations and contest Biden’s victory before the Supreme Court.
But while top officials in the department resisted, Trump separately opened a line of communication with Clark, who seemed more receptive to his theory that he had won the election, according to five people familiar with the matter, asking him to disclose inquiries that may cast doubt on the election.
Trump’s deliberations about replacing Rosen with Clark also sparked a crisis among other senior Justice Department officials, who promised to step down if Rosen were fired. The vote would have helped to persuade Trump not to act.
Mr. Clark said that this report is incorrect without specifying further and said that all of his conduct was legal.
While the machinations between Trump, Clark and Perry are not the focus of Trump’s impeachment trial – which accuses him of inciting the Capitol riot – Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, suggested that the matter would be presented to senators.
“This is powerful motivating evidence,” said Swalwell.